21 May 2014 Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs - 1995 Nobel Peace Prize From the Secretary General and Executive Director To the students of Pugwash District High School, We are writing to show our support for your plans to have a march and ribbon cutting on 22 May for the PeaceGround project. We are energized to hear about your efforts to learn more about the first conference held at Thinkers’ Lodge in 1957. As you know, the people who gathered there at that time felt the need to draw attention to their concerns about the new developments in science and technology that threatened the very existence of humanity. More than 17.000 nuclear weapons are still bloating the world’s arsenals today, while new and other threats are emerging. The world needs you. We need your energy, your insight, and your ‘new thinking’ (as Einstein, Russell and others called for in the 1955 Manifesto that led to that first important meeting in your home town). Understanding the past is an important step in moving toward a brighter future. We look forward to sitting on those new thoughtfully decorated benches in the Peace Park upon our next visit to Pugwash. For now, we want you to know that your efforts have been noticed. As you recommit yourselves to the goals of that first meeting, so do we – right alongside you, even if from several time zones and an ocean away. Joseph Rotblat, whose Nobel Peace Prize medallion now sits with pride at Thinkers’ Lodge, ended his Nobel address with the following words: The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than by compulsion; if in the process we learn to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task. Above all, remember your humanity. Your actions remind us of the sentiment behind this quote. By combining “the practical” (benches for contemplation) with “the beautiful” (your artwork), you have taken some steps toward the challenge Jo Rotblat set for us all. We wish you sunshine on the day, and hope to see pictures of the event. Best wishes, Paolo Cotta-Ramusino - Secretary General and Sandra Ionno Butcher Secretary General Executive Director